


Prom Day(s)

by Blop_The_Bean



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Enjoy!, F/F, F/M, I could keep going for days, M/M, Multi, THIS IS A BARCHIE FANFIC, This is basically a mix of crack and angst, a Riverdale take on Groundhog Day, but I'll stop now, but it's necessary for the story, canon compliant until 4x19, hamburger starring as a recurring character, mostly crack though, okay have fun reading, or will I?...., sorry in advance guys, the first chapter is abnormally long, this tag system is fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25037578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blop_The_Bean/pseuds/Blop_The_Bean
Summary: For the last two weeks, Betty has been putting on a facade, for the sake of her boyfriend and her bestfriend. Deep down she is hurting but she believes it is for the best.However, on Prom Day, everything she has been trying so hard to keep together falls apart in an unexpected turn of events.If only she could have another take on this day...
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Betty Cooper, Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge (on the verge of dying), Betty Cooper & Kevin Keller, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones (on the verge of dying), Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz, Fangs Fogarty/Kevin Keller, Hamburger/Everyone, Munroe Moore & Reggie Mantle
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	1. It's prom today!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys,  
> this is the first work I post here, and the first one in English - which is definitely not my first language. So please bear with me if I have made any grammatical mistakes.  
> Also thanks to @Psycho_gemini, my dear sister, for her help and ideas.
> 
> I thought of this story while browsing though Barchie fics and comments where people were wondering what would happen in the last episodes of season 4 (a.k.a the now first three episodes of season 5) and the idea of Betty reliving her prom day over and over again seemed kinda fun. So, here it is!  
> As I mentionned in the tags, the first chapter is rather long (and that's an understatement).
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the rambling. Enjoy!

_Beeeeeeep..._

Betty growled when her alarm clock roared in the silence of the early morning, indicating the beginning of a new day that already seemed exhausting.

_And yet, she had no idea how tiresome the next 15 hours were going to be._

The blonde sleepily searched her bedside table, looking up for her phone, and turned off the alarm before reclining her head in her pillow, ready to go back to sleep even if it was just for five more minutes.

_This, of course, was without counting on her mother._

“Rise and shine Elizabeth, it’s prom today!” Alice almost sang while crossing the room and opening the curtains.

While Betty definitely wanted to throw one of her cushions at her mom, she couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her excitement. She’d always wanted this kind of peaceful, healthy, _happy_ relationship with her mother and, eventually, it seemed like she finally got it. It was fresh, and new, but so appreciable.

The girl sat up in her bed while Alice sat next to her by taking her hand, looking at her with watery eyes. They just looked at each other for a brief moment before Alice broke the silence.

“You’ve grown up so much…”

“And here we go”, Betty interrupted and got up before her mother melted into tears. “Mom, you’ve already said that five days ago when we ended our finals.”

“I know, I know… I’m just so proud of you…”

“For going to prom?” Betty asked sarcastically with a mischievous smile on her face. “Yeah well, knowing that we had to get rid of our principal to maintain it, I’m not sure if there is anything to be proud of…”, she winced at the thought. _That_ _was_ _a_ _totally normal_ _thing to do for senior high-schoolers after all…_

“Don’t make fun at me, I just…”, she sighted, “I just love you so much and I want you to enjoy this special day as much as possible.”

“I know, mom. And I love you too. I promise I’ll try.” Betty replied, not really convinced by her last words. It just reminded her what day it was and why she couldn’t enjoy it as her mother wanted her to do. In one word, _guilt_. She didn’t deserve to enjoy this day (or any other) just as she didn’t deserve all of the affection her mom gave her. There really was nothing to be proud of because she was an awful person.

Alice interrupted her daughter’s flow of negative thoughts by giving her a quick hug before going to the door.

“Now hurry up, young lady, FP and Jughead are already down there having breakfast.”

Betty nodded and watched her mom close the door behind her. She let her eyes wander on it for a few moments, her smile slowly falling as she began to think again. Eventually her gaze fell on the mirror of her vanity which was reflecting her neatly cleaned bedroom and the view she had from her window: the sun-lit bedroom of the house next door, which belonged to a boy she knew all too well…

Betty suddenly closed her eyes.

_Focus. Breakfast._

.

As she got down the stairs, Betty did find both men from the Cooper-Jones household already in the kitchen. FP was leaning against the counter, reading a newspaper and drinking coffee while Jughead held a toast in one hand and tapped on his computer with the other. The blonde greeted them both and kissed Jughead’s cheek, receiving a vague "morning" in response, before making herself a bowl of cereal. She opened the door of the breakfast cupboard looking for the cereal box and was suddenly startled at the sound of the toaster and the sight of two slices of bread flying dangerously towards her face. At the same time, her head seemed to find its way to the top shelf and hit it abruptly.

“Dammit!” she cursed, getting the others’ attention.

As she massaged the top of her skull, FP put down his cup, looking at her both amused and concerned, and asked her if she was okay.

“I’m fine FP, thanks, it just got me by surprise.” Betty replied with a grin. “I was wondering… did you guys saw the cereal box? I can’t find it…”

“I guess Jellybean finished it yesterday.” Jughead responded without taking the eyes off of his screen. He had only done it once since Betty joined them in the kitchen and it only lasted a few seconds. Whatever he was doing, he was absorbed by it. It was practically a miracle he heard her.

“Great. Well, I guess I’m going to eat something else” she sighed. Jughead didn’t reply, having already started to type at full speed again while swallowing his fourth toast. Or at least the fourth since Betty arrived there.

His craze made her wonder, curious at what he could possibly be doing. She assumed that he was writing his novel so she didn’t quite understand when she saw a police report.

“What is that Jug?”

“Charles’ report about the tapes. He asked me to read it and to complete it with my own observations as the work was split in two. I’ve started last night but I fell asleep so I have to finish it now since we both agreed to meet at 9:30 to discuss it. Wanna come?”

Betty opened her mouth as he was speaking, ready to ask him if he was okay with the fact that he was studying some creepy mystery at the early hours of the morning but she didn’t. Instead she just replied:

“I can’t. I volunteered to help Cheryl and the decorating committee all day for senior prom, remember?”

She wanted to add that it was “ _in high school, where high-schoolers go instead of tracking_ _a_ _serial killer_ ” but, _again_ , she didn’t. She couldn’t. What was her right to do so?

“Right.” He responded without seeking to go further.

Betty felt relieved at the fact that her boyfriend didn’t ask why she suddenly wanted to find herself under Cheryl Blossom’s dictatorship of decor and taste.

The truth was that since all the “Archie thing”, Betty couldn’t sleep at night, turning all over while trying not to wake Jughead. Sharing a bed with her boyfriend had never been more uncomfortable. She couldn’t ignore the rising feeling of guilt in her stomach as she tried to pushed herself to the end of the mattress, unable to bear Jug’s proximity. Also she couldn’t look Veronica in the eyes as she smiled and talked to her about her prom dress during lunch at school. She could bear even less the fact that, because of her and her brand new ability to not respect deadlines, the entire senior class wouldn’t get a yearbook. The letter of recommendation that Mr. Honey had written for Jughead made her realize that even though he may not be the best person she met, he was right about her being responsible for the absence of a yearbook for the class of 2020. Finally, she couldn’t look at herself in the mirror only to see the guilt that had invaded her for weeks (and perhaps also because she was afraid to find in her eyes a truth she preferred to ignore).

As a result, she decided to make everything that was in her power to help all those around her who might need it, and that even though she was already exhausted by the end of the finals, the tapes’ investigation and her own stream of thoughts that seemed unstoppable. With this new resolution in mind came the assistance she was about to provide to the committee, and more specifically to her cousin.

She also made no further comment about Jug’s interest for the tapes, taking over his academic success, his future and their relationship.

She said nothing when, during the last few weeks, she saw him go to the police station instead of coming home with her, or when he watched videos for hours searching for clues instead of studying. She just pretended that she wasn’t seeing anything, waiting for him to tell her the truth – while knowing that she couldn’t blame him for not doing so. Because it would be worse to tell him that she knew what he was doing all this time. So she would have to lie and pretend that she was okay with him breaking his promise to work for the finals, and even knowing that lies of omission are still lies, it seemed less worse.

Sometimes she wondered when the lie had begun to intrude into her relationship, but she stopped almost immediately when a small voice in her head had whispered to her that it had begun long before her infamous kiss with Archie.

So she just smiled at him every time he mentioned Charles and the FBI, she let him drag her into this new mystery even though she had vowed to stay out of it, because he looked so happy whenever she said she’d help him. So who cared if it made her uncomfortable, if she no longer wanted to investigate, as long as it can made him smile?

Once again, she ignored the feeling that it shouldn’t be like that, that it shouldn’t feel wrong. Because she had no right to do so, not after…

“Well boy [for the non-connoisseurs pronounced: ‘boiiiiiii’] if I believe what you just said, you better hurry, it’s almost 9:25.”

Jughead suddenly lifted his head towards the clock, hearing his father’s warning, before jumping on his feet the next second, panic written all over his face. FP smiled as he saw the reaction of his son and offered to gave him a ride. Jughead thanked him and rushed out, telling him that there was no time to waste.

Betty, on the other hand, had returned to reality by hearing FP, previously lost in her thoughts. She barely had time to throw at Jughead a "See you tonight" before hearing the door slam. Her mother’s boyfriend wished her a good day and followed his son, leaving her alone in the kitchen.

She just stood there for a moment, her eyes fixed on the counter, ignoring the incessant gurgling of her belly while the growing feeling of forgetting something invaded her. What time did FP say it was? 9:25?

Her eyes widened as she remembered and rushed upstairs. Cheryl was going to kill her!

.

The door of the gymnasium opened in a deafening noise as Betty stepped inside, breathless. She had to get dressed in two minutes and rush to the school, all to arrive as little late as possible, and she had practically crashed against the door by opening it. As she regained her breath, bent in two, hands on her knees, she saw a pair of legs perched on bright red heels and slowly lifted her head up, only to face Cheryl Blossom glaring at her.

“Well, well, if that’s not my dear cousin. I believe that I asked everyone to be here by 9:30, which is funny because I’m pretty sure that was like... _twenty._ _m_ _inutes. ago_ ”, she said by giving her a death look.

“I know, I’m really sorry, I was talking and thinking – well, mostly thinking – and I totally forgot. I promise I made it as fast as I could. I didn’t even have break-”

Cheryl lifted a finger to stop the flow of words coming out of Betty’s mouth.

“Are you done?” She didn’t wait before adding: “Because I really don’t care. Now move your barely existing ass and make yourself useful. Isn’t that why you’re here anyway?”

Betty nodded, confused, and had to step back to avoid getting red hair in her face while Cheryl turned to shout orders from right to left.

“All right, everybody, come here, and please, for God’s sake can somebody open the windows and vent all that sweat out? I am not planning on fainting anytime soon, not until I turn this gym into the most beautiful dance-hall of the decade and get the crown to go on its rightful place: my crimson head!”

Betty followed the movement and joined the group already present around Cheryl who began a long speech about the vital importance of the prom and how she would haunt them until the end of time if anything wrong happened during the night. Meanwhile, Betty searched for familiar faces in the small crowd and she lit up at the sight of Kevin standing a few meters away. He was listening and winced as he heard the long list of tortures that Cheryl promised them to endure in case any mishaps were to happen. She walked discreetly to him and put her hand on his arm to warn him of her presence.

“Hey”, we whispered, smiling at her. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Last-minute decision. I offered my help to Cheryl two days ago, I wanted to participate. Being part of the Cheryl-Bombshell-prom-squad, that’s a once in lifetime experience, right?”

Kevin nodded before focusing back on the redhead a little further. He leaned toward Betty’s ear a while later to whisper to her:

“She’s had way too much coffee this morning, don’t you think?”

“Tell me about it!”

They smiled, a look of connivance between them.

“Okay then, here’s what we’ll start with: the floor _clearly_ needs to be cleaned, and so do the windows. I don’t wanna see any trace of sports shoes or sticky fingers, understood? You’ll find the school cleaning equipment in a room I’ll give you the key to later. It was made available to us for the day. Then: the tables and chairs will be delivered to us within two hours, as will the stage, the projectors and the speakers. You better be done by then. As for me, I will call for reinforcements to help us mount all of this.”

“Us? I didn’t hear the part where she was involved” joked Kevin.

Betty giggled, covering her mouth with her hand in an attempt to stifle the sound. No one seemed to pay much attention to them, except for Cheryl, who smiled diabolically before adding:

“Also, it wasn’t initially planned in the program but I discovered that the locker rooms and showers smelled atrociously bad. Whoever cleaned this up did their job poorly. Anyway, I can’t take the risk the so-called manly sweat smells of these gentlemen ruining the evening by breaking into the gym’s atmosphere. So… _cousin_ _Betty,_ since you came in late, I’m putting you on this most important assignment.”

The blonde girl raised her head at this announcement and opened her mouth to protest but closed it by seeing the insistent gaze that Cheryl sent her.

 _Remember_ _Betty_ _, help everyone._

She raised a fist in the air and answered sarcastically, forcing a smile on her face:

“Of course, it will be my pleasure to keep your nostrils safe.”

“Perfect! Now everyone, follow me to the storage room, we’ve already wasted too much time talking.”

Once everyone was equipped, they went to their respective tasks. The redhead gave to Betty a pair of rubber gloves, a sponge and a seal and leaved her with a classic: “Toodles!”.

Betty watched her as she joined the gym before heading to the locker room. As she walked in, a strong smell went up to her head and she couldn’t help but grimace and plug her nose. At least Cheryl didn’t lie.

“Oh God, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

.

After opening the windows in order to bring in some breathable air and avoid suffocating, Betty looked at herself and appreciated the fact of having put on shorts, it would make things easier to avoid wetting her clothes. Then she took off her shoes and filled the bucket with water before putting soap on a sponge and starting to rub the tiled walls. She was still unsure of the point of her task but she did it without protest. After all, if teenagers ever wanted to meet up tonight in a quiet place for a make-out session, she could always advise them on “high school locker rooms and their soapy perfume!”. Plus, it allowed her to keep her brain focused and avoid rambling as she had been doing for weeks. When she wasn’t thinking about the fact that she was probably the worst person on the planet, she was torturing herself by trying to find a way to confess her betrayal to Jughead that would make him suffer as little as possible and that would allow them to overcome it. Except that, _fun fact_ , of all the boys she could have kissed, she had chosen her best friend who was also her boyfriend’s best friend aka maybe the _only_ boy who made Jughead insecure about their relationship. Why couldn’t she have kissed somebody else?! It would have been so much easier to forgive… to forget…

Except that she could never have kissed some random guy, it would always have been Archie. Because she could never kiss someone without having feelings for…

 _No!_ There was nothing between her and Archie, or at least nothing like _that_. It should never have happened in the first place and if it had it was because… because… _because!_ But it didn’t matter. And even knowing that it sounded pretty much like denial, _it wasn’t denial!_

Betty sighed as she was mentally debating with herself. Maybe going on a big cleaning mission didn’t help as much as she’d like to keep her mind busy. She didn’t know how long she’d been here, rubbing harder and harder the showers’ walls as the thoughts rushed in her mind, but she was pretty sure it was clean now. She breathed another sigh as she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, realizing now that she was sweating because of the effort. Several strands of hair had escaped from her ponytail, sticking to her face in the process, and her stomach reminded her once again that she had not eaten since last night with a gurgling sound. Betty quickly wiped her hands and decided to go see how things were going in the gym. She would only have to wash the floor when she came back and hopefully it would soon be lunch time and her ordeal would be over.

When she arrived in the gym, she could see the few students of the committee rubbing the windows under Cheryl’s barking and suddenly her task isolated from the others seemed very enviable. She spotted Kevin sweeping into a corner and headed in his direction. When he heard her coming, he raised his head and seemed relieved to see that it was only her.

“Hey Kev, how is it going?”

“Well we just finished mopping and Cheryl’s having us clean all the tiles for the third time this morning because, I quote, “I want to be able to distinctly see every single strand of my hair every time I’ll twirl on the dance-floor". You?”

Betty smirked at her friend’s annoyance while answering.

“Showers have never been cleaner! I still have to wash the floor but I came to check on how things were going here and see what time it is.” As she replied, she searched for the clock and saw that it indicated 11:30. A wave of relief invaded her when she realized that the lunch break was only half an hour away.

She thought that she could stay and talk with Kevin for a few minutes before going back to work when she heard Cheryl’s voice getting closer to her. She was on her phone but still took the trouble to call them:

“Would it be chatter that I see? Betty, I assume that you have finished your work in the locker rooms?”

“Actually, I still have to clean the ground but-” she started, moving her hands as she tried to explain, but quickly cut herself as the redhead threw her an insistent look. “You know what, I think I’m gonna go back.”

“You do that” she replied with an exaggerated smile and began talking again to the person she was on the phone with. As she walked back to the showers, Betty heard the end of the conversation.

“… And get yourself some team guys back. We’re gonna need extra arms. Oh and before I forget, bring some food. Edible food.”

She didn’t seem to wait for the person to protest and hung up. Betty felt slightly bad for her cousin’s interlocutor but could not help smiling at the thought of stuffing herself. Back in the locker rooms, she filled a jump with soap and water and began to mop. She was barefoot again to avoid ruining her work with shoe tracks and winced when the cold water splashed her ankles. As she rubbed the ground, it suddenly appeared to her that she had probably poured too much water as her feet slid onto the tile in a wild dance, making her shriek and sending her waltzing against the lockers with as much grace as an elephant on roller-skates.

_Great._

She walked away from the doors with a grunt as she painfully rubbed her cheek. That was definitely not her day. While she picked up the broom that had escaped her hands a few seconds earlier, a memory crossed her mind. Almost three years ago, she was standing there with Veronica in the middle of the whole shirtless football team, including none other than _Archie Andrews_. She remembered how embarrassed she was when Veronica had dragged her into the room, how much she wanted to disappear into the ground and never go out again as she used her hand as a visor to hide the boys from her sight, and how it became much worse when the two girls faced the boy next door, who only had a towel around the waist. He hadn’t seem particularly comfortable either to find himself dressed like that (or rather _not dressed_ like that) facing them as he looked at her wide-eyed, trying to understand what his best friend was doing in the boys' locker room.

 _Yeah_ , that very moment was _definitely_ one of the most shameful times of her life.

A silly laugh escaped her as she remembered times when her greatest concern was to wonder how she could look him in the eye again without blushing with embarrassment.

 _Him_. She sighed. Here she was again, thinking of _him_. Because everything led back to _him_. She sat in a corner of the room and let her head rest against the lockers as she closed her eyes. The ground had to dry out, which meant she just had to wait. She hadn’t allow herself to feel sorry for herself in the recent weeks. Not even once. She certainly wasn’t going to start now.

So she just stayed her, laying on the floor – which had probably dried out a long time ago now –, trying not to think about anything.

At least that was until she heard Cheryl screaming “Lunch break! Everybody come here!”. She quickly opened her eyes, put her shoes back on and, listening only to the growl of her stomach, ran to the gym. The small group was already assembled around the future queen and she hastened to join it. She listened to the girl say that the work of the morning had been done in time, while being unable to refrain herself from releasing some criticism here and there in a typical ‘Cheryl being Cheryl’ way. After a while, and to Betty’s greatest relief, she finally finished her speech and indicated that the famous reinforcements needed for the entire installation scheduled for this afternoon would soon arrive with lunch – which, of course, gave rise to an unconditional love on Betty’s part for the said reinforcements.

That’s why, when the main door opened a few minutes later on a group of boys with their arms loaded with bags stamped "Pop’s", she almost ran to meet them with certainly the most awed expression they had seen in a long time, and this without taking the trouble to look at who she owed her salvation to. The scene seemed to unfold in slow motion: the boys were haloed in light as Betty ran towards them with her arms outstretched, and suddenly she held in her hands one of the bags from which a delicious hamburger smell escaped and she began to salivate and…

 _Grrrmbrugkkllll…_ (the author believes this to be the sound of a famished digestive system. Any other suggestion in the comments would be much appreciated)

The silence that followed was one of the most awkward, embarrassing and, well, _silent_ that Betty had ever experienced. She felt a wave of shame overwhelm her and her ears started to warm.

The blonde girl though that it couldn’t get any worse when she finally found the courage to lift her head up to face the boy who was _still_ holding the bag she had _also_ been holding in her hands for nearly thirty seconds. Her eyes widened when it appeared that she was wrong: him being there was definitely _not_ good.

“ _Archie?!_ ”

.

When Cheryl Blossom had called him a little less than an hour earlier and asked him – more like _ordered_ – to "bring these muscles back to the high school gym so that they could be used for something" _and_ lunch, Archie hadn’t really pictured himself in this position. He had just seized the opportunity to help and relieve the burden of guilt that had been weighing on his shoulders for some time. Plus, it would allow him to occupy his mind all afternoon and thus avoid thinking about _her_. … On second thought, _maybe_ he shouldn’t have believed so much in his luck.

Indeed, he didn’t quite expect to walk out the door and see _the_ girl, the same one he had barely seen in the last few weeks, looking at him with sparkles in her eyes as if he were the eighth wonder of the world while running towards him. He didn’t understand where this sudden display of affection came from, given the way their last _real_ conversation had ended and the fact that he was pretty sure that she had been avoiding him for two weeks, but he couldn’t stop his heart from speeding up and felt his cheeks blush at the look that she threw at him. A lump formed in his throat and on that moment it would have been difficult to deny how she made him feel.

So the disappointment was significant enough when he realized that she did not intend to throw herself into his arms but that she was interested in the bag of food he had in his hands. The unconditional love in her eyes wasn’t meant for _him_ but for the food.

His rival was a hamburger. _Worse_ , the hamburger had actually won. _Hard blow for the ego._

As much as he hated himself for letting hope invade him in such a stupid way, he couldn’t prevent the smile that formed on his face as he watched the marvelous look she had, the bag in her hands. It was cute.

Thinking about it, and even if it hurt to admit it, she must not have noticed that it was he who stood before her. Otherwise she would probably never have rushed towards him. So, he decided to simply enjoy the closeness they shared as long as it would last, even if he was the only one to realize it. Unfortunately for him, the moment was quickly broken by a gurgling sound coming from the stomach of the girl in front of him. A silence fell in the room as he could easily watch Betty’s ears blush at great speed. The bag in her hands seemed to have found a whole new interest in her eyes since she decided to stare at it intensely as if she was trying to find a way to disappear inside. Again, kind of cute. Eventually, she decided to raise her head and he could finally see her face. Only, she seemed horrified when she saw his.

“ _Archie?!_ ”

He offered her a shy smile.

“Hi Betts.”

.

She just stood there, frozen, with her mouth wide open as if she wanted to swallow flies, while he greeted her in return. Then, suddenly she seemed to reconnect to the real world and bounced back by releasing her grip on the bag before stuttering an answer:

“Wha- what are you doing here?”

She didn’t know if it was she who imagined it or if the flash of pain had really crossed his eyes when he heard her answer, but she immediately blamed herself for it.

“Well Cheryl called me earlier for-”

“Oh good, you’re here” Cheryl interrupted him when she arrived between them. “Great job Andrews!” she added, smiling appreciatively at the half-dozen boys standing in front of her. “Not that I expected nothing less from you. Gentlemen, please follow me. Everyone, lunch is served!”

A series of cheers followed her statement as the boys followed Cheryl to the back of the gym were the others were waiting. Only Betty and Archie stayed a few more seconds, staring into each other’s eyes, Betty opening and closing her mouth, feeling more ridiculous each time, but the words seemed to be lost in her throat. Finally she managed to get something out:

“I- I’m sorry I just-… I didn’t know _you_ were the backup Cheryl called.”

She immediately felt like hitting her head against a wall. _Seriously?_ She couldn’t have done any better. As if he hadn’t already guessed it given her behavior.

“Yeah, I figured” he answered with a pressed look and an embarrassed laugh. That was his way of trying to make her laugh with her own clumsiness. A heat wave invaded her when she saw that he was trying to make her relax because he had felt her discomfort, but she immediately drove it away as well as the beginning of a smile that formed on her face. _She had no right to feel like this around him._ She shouldn’t do so. So she quickly replied, looking at her feet:

“Yeah, hum we- we should join them. I’m-”

“Starving. Obviously.” She lifted her head up, surprised because that wasn’t what she was about to say, and saw his smirked and his mischievous gaze.

And here she was again, feeling a gentle warmth spreading through her chest. She wanted to smile back at him. She wanted it so much. It seemed so simple.

And yet, it wasn’t.

Betty quickly turned her gaze away, nodded and left to join the others. She tried to ignore the pain in her chest that she knew was due to the disappointment that was likely dancing in Archie’s eyes. It was the right thing to do. She was doing the right thing, she _knew_ she was. So why did it feel so wrong?

“Betty?”

She froze. She wasn’t sure she could look him in the eyes and see how she continued to hurt him over and over again. But she turned around, trying to keep an impassive look on her face. He handed her his bag.

“Here. You seem to need it.”

And with that, he passed her and walk to the others.

.

“Hum hello? Earth to Betty Cooper… do you hear me?”

Betty shook her head out of her thoughts. She had to wait a few seconds to recompose a smiling face before meeting the squad to eat, after Archie gave her his bag a few minutes ago. Then everyone was scattered around the gymnasium in small groups for lunch. She had sat in a corner with Kevin and stared at the bag on her lap since.

“Hum? Sorry what?” she replied, confused.

Kevin sighed but smiled. “I said: I didn’t know Archie was coming, we should go to eat with him” he repeats by exaggerating every word.

“What? No! I mean, we’ve already started eating, it’s not like we’re going to move now…”

“I haven’t. You haven’t. That was a terrible excuse. Are you trying to avoid him or something?” he asked with an inquisitive look.

“What? No!” she said for the second time in less than twenty seconds.

“Great, so we’re going” Kevin replied while rising and dragging her behind him, ignoring her protests.

And that’s how she found herself less than a minute later sitting with Archie, Reggie, Munroe and three other guys from the football team, eating her hamburger. The feeling of the food in her mouth should have brought her comfort and yet, Betty had the impression that a stone had fallen into her stomach. She felt uncomfortable as the boys exchanged jokes while they started eating. A few times, she could feel Archie’s gaze lingering on her and she had to force herself to swallow to evacuate the knot forming in her throat. Betty had been avoiding him for over two weeks now, only seeing him when it was the four of them, which was _really_ _rare_ , and in these moments she strangely seemed able to act like everything was alright. She didn’t know how she managed to do that, but she did it anyway. Maybe it was because she felt like she had to, like the stakes were far too high for her to screw it up. Maybe it was the tension in her chest that prevented her from thinking and that activated in her some kind of autopilot mode. Maybe it was something else but, somehow, she managed to hold the house of cards. But there, without the presence of Jughead or Veronica to keep her aware of her every move and word, she couldn’t pretend to ignore that she was hurting him, she could even less pretend that she didn’t hate herself for it too.

She spent lunch with a single thought in her head, unconscious of the world around her:

_She was a terrible person._

.

The afternoon only left a blurry memory in Betty’s mind: the technical equipment for the evening had been quickly delivered and with it the work had resumed. The boys had mainly helped to move everything and install the projectors and the speakers, all with the help of a member of the high school’s staff, and Betty had managed to avoid being on a mission with Archie by convincing Cheryl that she would be much more useful inflating the balloons with Kevin. She felt childish and stupid but she couldn’t manage his unexpected presence here, a few meters away from her, when she had done everything for weeks to avoid being in this position. She carried out the tasks attributed to her without thinking, like an automaton, with a tight throat, doing everything she could to prevent herself from thinking about the redheaded boy in the room. She had been successful at it for weeks, even when he was just in front of her. Each time, she had focused her attention on anyone else and had shut herself in her own world, hermetic to the one surrounding her. She had smiled and nodded every time someone had asked her for approval, she had laughed when she had heard the others do it, even if she didn’t know why. She didn’t know what was worse: that it seemed as easy to her or that even the people closest to her didn’t notice it.

But the point was, if she managed to do that before, there was no reason she couldn’t do it now. However, when Cheryl announced the end of the work and told everyone that they could get ready for the prom, Betty let out a sigh of relief and felt her shoulders relax. It was barely 4:00 p.m. and she certainly wouldn’t need three hours to get dressed but she was ready to rush out and pretend otherwise if it would allow her to get away as soon as possible from _she-knew-who_. Part of her, the rational part, was telling her that she shouldn’t need to get away from Archie if there was _really nothing_ she had to worry about between her and him but, for once, the other part, the emotional one, the _exact_ one which was telling her that she couldn’t stand this situation any longer, _that_ part won. So she rushed out of the gym, barely waving at Kevin when she left. Yet, in her hurry, she heard him saying: "Hey Betty, you’re already going? Wait, maybe you and Archie can make the road together!", but that didn’t stop her in her tracks as she answered him vaguely, shouting from over her shoulder: "Yeah great Kev', see you tonight!”.

She didn’t see the look of confusion on her friend’s face and if she had been asked what she had done, she would certainly have responded that this was a “ _strategic retreat”_. Because, after all, it really felt like that.

.

Betty stared at her reflection in the mirror of her vanity, watching her blond curls fall on her shoulders, two strands of hair simply gathered at the back of her head. She glanced at her phone for the fifth time in two minutes and sighed. No answers. No phone call. _Still_ : it was already 7:12 p.m.

Prom had officially started twelve minutes earlier but her boyfriend was nowhere to be found. There probably weren’t that many people in the gym right now but it was about to get crowded quickly and she had a feeling that Jughead, on the other hand, wasn’t going to show up anytime soon. She closed her eyes, reminding herself that she had no right to be angry at him, that she had no right to blame him for being late or for _anything else_ because she was _a horrible person_ who didn’t deserve _anything._ She let out another sigh, stronger this time, while the weight on her chest became heavier and heavier. She couldn’t cry now. She had no right to do so. She was the one who was hurting others, the one to blame. She wasn’t the victim in this story.

Her eyes fell on the navy blue fabric of her dress on her knees. Maybe no one would see this dress because Jughead wouldn’t come, and if he didn’t, maybe it would be better if she didn’t go to the party either. It wasn’t like she couldn’t go because she’d be ashamed to show up alone or something, but if Jughead preferred to study the case with Charles instead of going to prom – and Betty _knew_ he did, he only had planned on going to prom to be with her and their friends, not because it was something that he looked forward to – then maybe Betty should go join them and help them. It would certainly make Jughead happy, and Betty had vowed to do anything to make him happy. If he was, whatever it took, she would be happy too, wouldn’t she?

After all, maybe it was for the best. Maybe she didn’t really want to go to prom, right? If Jughead didn’t want to, so did she… She would be happy about it…

 _Right_?

She really tried to convince herself that she meant it.

.

“Oh my God Elizabeth, what are you still doing here? Shouldn’t you have left already?”

Betty didn’t turn to the sound of her mother’s voice. It was 7:38 p.m. now and she had moved to her window, which was funny considering she had been avoiding this particular window for more than two weeks. Her head was leaning on its frame and her gaze was fixed on the street below. She didn’t know why she was there, what she expected to see. Maybe Jughead running to the front door. He still hadn’t returned any of her texts or calls. She said she could join him, yet she hadn’t moved. She remained there, looking absentmindedly outside. She had seen Veronica arrive in her dark purple dress and Mary insisted on taking pictures on the porch. The dark-haired girl had sent her a message, asking where she and Jughead were because Mary wanted photos of the four of them. She had hidden herself behind the curtains while she answered that she couldn’t now but that they would join them later. It was certainly “later” by now but she was still there, her forehead against the glass.

Well at least that was what she was doing before her mom came in.

Alice approached her daughter and laid a hand on her shoulder, gently pushing her blond curls.

“Hey honey, are you okay? Shouldn’t Jughead be here by now? I already thought it was weird that he missed dinner but now it’s getting late, where is he? Did you guys agreed to meet at Riverdale High or something?”

Betty couldn’t answer honestly all her mother’s questions so, instead, she gave her a small smile and replied. “Yeah, I’m fine mom. As for prom, I don’t know if I should be going after all. And Jughead, well Jughead-”

She was interrupted by the buzzing of her phone announcing a new text. She shared a look with her mom, who started looking shocked at the thought of her younger daughter not going to prom, before heading to her vanity and seeing who it came from. Who knew? Maybe Veronica was getting impatient – which wouldn’t be _so_ out of character.

_**Jughead, 7:41 p.m. “Sorry, it took longer than expected. I’ll need a few more minutes. Go to prom, I’ll meet you at the gym.”** _

“What do you mean you’re not sure on going to prom?” Alice intervened, getting closer. “How can you not-”

“It’s okay mom, I’m going. You’re right, I’ll meet Jug at the gym.” Betty cut her off before she could ask any more questions. “And forget about what I said, I just meant that I didn’t know if I should go in this dress. I don’t know if this suits me” she tried to make up for it without drawing her mother’s suspicions. She had a moment of weakness and almost let her mother comfort her while _she didn’t deserve to be comforted_. Fortunately, Betty’s last words caught Alice’s attention and she hastened to grab her daughter’s hands, her eyes fogged.

“Oh honey, look at you! How can you even _think_ that this dress doesn’t fit you? You’re so beautiful… I think I’m gonna cry.”

Betty interrupted her before she could, giving her a quick hug. She would’ve wanted to linger in the warmth of that comforting embrace, but she knew she didn’t deserve it, so she stepped back and said she was already late. Alice instantly offered to take her and they both made their way downstairs. FP complimented her when he saw her in the entryway and scolded his son for not having arrived yet. Betty told him that it was okay, that is was planned from the beginning, even though it wasn’t, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

When her mom left her in the parking lot near the gym, wishing her a good evening, her eyes full of pride, Betty gave her a smile and told her she loved her. As she reached the stairs, she took a deep breath, gathering her courage, and tried to walk with firm steps. _She c_ _ould_ _do this. She had to do this._ She stopped at the door. She could feel the vibrations of the music from inside. _She was going to smile and have fun with her friends because that would make them happy and because they deserved it. She was okay. Everything was okay. She could do this._

And with that, she stepped in.

.

The music was even louder inside and she had to give her ears time to get used to it; the contrast between the silence of an early June evening and the effervescence of a high school prom was quite substantial. She smiled at the sight of the decorated gym even though she had seen it earlier, because it was another thing to see all of her classmates enjoying it so much. It reminded her why she took part of the committee in the first place.

Her gaze scoured the room in search for her friends and she took a few steps to see better, entering the light of the projectors.

She did find one of them.

_Because he was still her friend, right?_

.

Archie had been there for almost an hour when he proposed to go fetch drinks for the third time of the evening. It was particularly difficult to stand there with Veronica, to pose with her in front of his mother, to watch her smile every time she asked him to dance with her and to pretend that he was having the time of his life. He had already used this excuse twice and he knew it was starting to look suspicious but he couldn’t help trying to escape this situation and the feeling that his heart was clenching in his chest. It was supposed to be right. It _was_ right. _W asn’t it?_ He had trouble silencing the voice that told him it shouldn’t feel like that.

He made his way to the tables, cutting through the dance floor and suddenly froze.

 _She_ was there. Standing in front of him in her long navy blue dress, the projectors’ lights reflecting on her blond curls and pale skin. Her blue-green eyes met his hazel ones and Archie’s heart skipped a beat, hurting as it seemed to narrow in his chest. They locked eyes for what seemed like an eternity and a mere second at the same time. She didn’t seem to be able to look away from him and Archie couldn’t do any better. He opened his mouth only to realize that he didn’t know what to say, so he just stayed here, his mouth wide open, blown away by the girl in front of him. Eventually, he seemed to come back to his senses and cleared his throat, only to find it as dry as the Sahara. He swallowed.

“Betty you look-”

“Oh God Betty, you finally made it!”

And suddenly Veronica appeared before him, as a violent reminder of the world around them, of reality.

“What were you doing? Where is Jughead?”

Jughead, _right_. His supposed best friend. It felt like a punch in the stomach. He had almost forgotten about him. To be honest, five seconds ago, he had almost forgotten about everything.

.

Veronica smiled at her and Betty hated herself because a few seconds earlier, she was sharing a look with her best friend’s boyfriend and completely forgot about her. Weeks of fighting against herself gone up in smoke in one look. She was so weak, and she hated it.

She had been unable to move, lost in Archie’s eyes, as if time had stopped. Except that it hadn’t, they were not alone, in more ways that one. Veronica was here to remind her of that. As she asked her where Jughead was, Betty forced a smile on her face, recomposing herself, and replied.

“He’ll be here soon, and sorry for being late, it took me a lot longer than I expected to get ready.”

“You mean you came here alone?!” Veronica exclaimed in a dramatic way, totally missing the fact that Betty’s excuse was kind of unbelievable if you knew her well enough. “How could he do this to you? If my date had left me in the lurch, I swear he wouldn’t have been able to breathe the next day.”

“It’s okay V, I promise he didn’t ‘leave me in the lurch’.”

“Uhm.” Veronica mumbled before turning away from the subject, displaying a big smile. “Anyway, Archiekins was about to get us some drinks. Archie?”

The boy in question seemed to come to his sense as his girlfriend gave him an insistent look.

“Uh? Yeah of course, I’m going.”

Veronica smiled in appreciation before taking Betty’s hand ans dragging her into the room to the place where the rest of their friends were. Reggie was laughing with Munroe about some private joke while Kevin and Fangs were dancing, jumping in all directions more or less in rhythm with the beat, which seemed to bother Cheryl who looked at them with a haughty look, but they didn’t really care. Betty smiled at her friends’ happiness. When they reached the boys, Veronica throw them a “Look who I found” and they offered Betty warm smiles as they saw her and complimented her on her looks. She thanked them and Archie quickly returned with their cups. She tried not to look at him when he gave her hers. Eventually, Fangs and Kevin joined them, so did Toni, and they spent almost half an hour talking and exchanging jokes, everyone laughing and having fun. Well, almost everyone. Betty, although she stuck a smile on her face all evening, had trouble breathing properly. It was harder that she thought it’ll be.

Jughead arrived around 8:20 p.m. and came to lay his hand around Betty’s waist, kissing her cheek. Betty smiled.

They shared some dances before the music stopped for the announcement of the prom king and queen. A teacher who was there to chaperon the evening went up on the stage and opened the envelope of results.

“Ladies and gentleman, I have the pleasure to announce you that, for the first time ever, Riverdale High has two queens, misses Cheryl Blossom and Antoinette Topaz! Ladies, please come up here.”

A thunder of applause broke out in the room even though no one really had any doubt about the results. Cheryl and Toni reached the stage to receive their crowns, big smiles all over their faces. Then, the prom queens dance was announced and everyone went on to find a partner. Veronica dragged Archie to the dance floor in a matter of seconds and Jughead offered his hand to Betty with a smirk. During the dance, the teacher announced the release of a slide show planned to replace the yearbook. Betty frowned and searched for Kevin in the crowd. She caught his gaze, silently asking him if he knew anything about this. He simply shook his head and shrugged before focusing back on his boyfriend. She chose to do the same and found Jughead already looking at her. He was smiling, love painted in his eyes and Betty’s heart broke. She had to tell him. But she didn’t know _how._

She buried her head in his neck in order to hide her wet eyes. She finally lifted it, placing her chin on Jughead’s shoulder, and immediately regretted it. Three meters away, right in front of her was standing a well-known redhead boy. The raven-haired girl was in his arms, her back facing Betty, and he was staring at her. She should’ve looked away, she really should’ve, and yet she didn’t. She _couldn’t_. It was like her body didn’t listen to her head. They looked at each other and the blonde girl forgot where she was for the second time this evening. So many emotions crossed their eyes and her head suddenly felt heavy. She couldn’t quite pinpoint what kind of emotion was in his eyes and she wondered if he could tell what was in hers, because she didn’t know herself.

It was _wrong_.

She looked away, turning her head, and forced herself to strengthen her grip on Jughead’s shoulders. He was there, she was there, it was right.

.

At the end of the song, they both left the dance-floor. Jughead’s phone rang and he walked away to take the call, leaving Betty leaning against a wall and watching the presentation, her eyes hovering over the crowd of high school students. She watched the pictures and the smiling faces on every one of them, names parading in random order. She softly smiled when she saw _**‘Kevin Keller’**_ in bold capson the screen. The next slide showed several pictures of him where he was either alone or with his friends. She found herself on one of them, laughing with him. _Sophomore year._ It seems like a lifetime ago.

Jughead came back, looking a little embarrassed as he took her away to talk to her over the music.

“It was Charles. He found something… I think- I think I’m gonna go back to the station” he said, hesitantly. “You know we really have made some progress today, I think we’re getting close to the goal Betty!” he tried to justify himself, not knowing that it was unnecessary. Because no matter how Betty felt or what she thought, she would let him do whatever he wanted. She had no right to prevent him from leaving.

“That’s okay Jug. You should go if you want to” she gently replied.

He offered her a bright smile and kissed her. “See you later. I love you.” he replied before running away.

“I love you too.”

And it was true.

.

Veronica joined her the second she saw Jughead leaving, a look of pure outrage displayed on her face. “Please tell me he’s going to fill your cups… outside?” she told her, doubting her own words when she saw the beanie boy crossing the entrance door.

Betty turned around to see him leave while starting to answer, before being interrupted by her friend. “Actually he had to g-”

“Oh look Betty it’s your turn!” She exclaimed, suddenly more preoccupied with the slideshow. “ _Wait_ … why is your name with Archie’s?”

“What?!” She turned so quickly that the bones of her neck hurt her.

Veronica didn’t answer, eyes glued to the screen. Betty followed her gaze and actually saw the slide display not _one_ name like it was the case since the beginning of the projection but _two_.

‘ _ **Betty Cooper & Archie Andrews’**_

The slide, instead of displaying a full stack of pictures filled with joyous memories, gave way to a video. The camera was outside of a building and seemed to be zooming in on a window. Two figures were moving inside the room.

A blue one. And a red one.

One with a ponytail. The other with red hair.

The sound of the video replaced the music. It was strangled but you could still hear two voices singing. _Their_ voices.

Betty felt like she was about to vomit.

“Oh God, no.”

.

The high school students had gradually stopped dancing and were now watching the screen or looking for the two protagonists in the room. The quality wasn’t good but there was no doubt as to who the two singers were. Betty’s panicked gaze found Archie just a few yards away. He looked as distraught and helpless as she did, his eyes not leaving the stage where the video of their rehearsal was projected. She saw them spinning around the microphone, smiling at each other, before stopping in the middle of the song, Archie pushing his guitar towards his back, her throwing the microphone to the ground, and the two of them locking their lips in a passionate kiss.

She didn’t watch that last part though, turning to the raven-haired girl next to her. Her mouth opened, disbelief and pain passing through her eyes when she saw their betrayal.

“What the hell?!!” The words came out of Veronica’s mouth with such distaste as if it was physically hurtful for her to utter them.

Whispers and exclamations echoed in the gymnasium as the video stopped and the slideshow resumed its course as if nothing had happened. Except that something had happened. A nuclear bomb had just been thrown and Betty’s fragile house of cards had collapsed, disintegrating in a second. She couldn’t look at anything but Veronica, even though she could feel dozens of eyes on her. Her heart was in her throat and her knees seemed about to fall. Veronica’s face, until then creased by a plethora of emotions, suddenly relaxed to display an impassive expression.

“You, and you,” she said, pointing in turn to Betty and Archie, “out. _N_ _ow_.” Her voice was cold as ice as she spoke to them, already heading to the gymnasium door, and Betty was deeply convinced that it couldn’t be worse as she followed her, shaking. She was wrong.

“Betty?” The voice behind her made her froze and her heart ached even more. She turned to face her boyfriend who was looking at her with disbelief, pain and anger in his eyes. The mixture wasn’t a pretty sight and Betty cursed herself to be the source of it. When did he came back? Hadn’t he said that he was leaving?

As if he read her mind, he clarified: “I came back to see if they had burgers at the buffet but I _really_ don’t think I’m the one who should be explaining myself right now.” His tone was poisonous and he passed her to go through another exit than Archie and Veronica had taken. She didn’t hesitate for a second and followed him, running. She could feel everyone looking at her and her head was spinning. She pushed the door and ran behind Jughead in the halls. It was awful. She didn’t know where she was and why she was there. All she knew was that she had to run after something that was already gone.

Jughead’s pace was fast and Betty’s legs wobbled so she only caught up with him at the entrance of the school, when he walked through the doors to the outside.

“Jug please, wait!” she begged at the top of the stairs when he stood at the bottom of it. The distance separating them seemed to represent the gap that had been dug between them a minute earlier. _But did_ _it_ _really start digging a minute earlier?_

“Why?!” he shouted as he turned. “Care to explain why the hell I saw you _kissing_ _Archie_? Let me guess, your tripped on the carpet and by some miracle your mouth found its way to his? Or maybe your were facing a life or death situation again? Tell me Betty, I’m curious!”

She opened her mouth, tears pouring down her checks, but only a strangled sound came out. Her breathing was irregular, her chest rising and lowering in a messy way.

“I- I’m… so… _so_ sorry” she managed to say between two sobs.

He chuckled, bitterly, and shook his head.

“I wanted to tell you, I _swear_ I wanted to” she continued.

“Oh yeah?” he cut her off. “That’s why you didn’t?! Because I think I’d remember if you had come to me saying ‘sorry Juggie, I just cheated on you with your _best friend_!!’”

“I’m sorry, I knew I had to, I just- I didn’t know how. I’m-”

“Don’t! Don’t even _try_ to explain.” he interrupted her again and the disgust in his eyes made her shiver. “I don’t wanna hear it! It make me sick, _you_ make me sick! How could you do this to me? After everything we’ve been through?” he didn’t wait for her to answer before adding on an ironic tone. “It’s over. Congratulations miss Elizabeth Cooper, you actually managed to find the worst thing you could do to me! Consider yourself crowned the Queen of betrayal…” he finished turning on his heels and leaving the school’s grounds.

“Please Jug… please wait… _please_ …” she implored but he was already far away. She fell to her knees, hanging on the railing to avoid falling down the stairs, even though she was barely conscious enough to account for it. Tears flowed faster and sobs shook her entire body violently. The cries that escaped from her mouth echoed in the silence of the night. _She deserved it._ She deserved to feel this way. She kept repeating it to herself, because she _deserved_ to be in pain.

 _But Veronica didn’t._ The reminder of her best friend made her open her eyes. Betty had to explain the situation to her, even if it meant that the dark-haired girl would vent on her. Even if she wasn’t sure she could handle it. Because it didn’t matter. _She_ didn’t matter. Not anymore.

So she got up, her legs trembling, and forced herself to walk back to the gym. She zoomed across the room and headed straight out. As she approached, she could hear Veronica’s hysterical screams. When the former New-York socialite saw her, she started to laugh. It wasn’t a joyful laugh though, more like a venomous one, _and it hurt._

“Oh look who’s here _Archiekins_! Isn’t that my dear best friend? _B_ , how have you been since I found out you _loosely stabbed me in the back?!_ ”

Betty swallowed, wanting to make disappear the lump in her throat that prevented her from speaking and made her hurt. Veronica’s tone was sharp and her eyes seemed ready to shoot Betty on the spot. Tears blurred Betty’s vision as she approached her while speaking. She could hear the tremor in her voice.

“Veronica, please. I’m _so sorry_. I know you have no reasons but _please_ let me exp-”

The slap was violent and sudden that she didn’t see it coming. Her head spun to the left while the sound resonated on the brick walls. It hurt, but she didn’t complain out loud. _She deserved it._

She could hear Archie exclaiming and moving forward but Veronica raised her hand as if to challenge him to approach.

“You’re right, I have no reasons to listen to you _bitch_ explain to me why my so-called _best friend_ kissed my _boyfriend_!!” there was no more irony in her voice. “How could you do this to me?! How could _you both_ do this to me?!” her voice cracked on the last words and Betty’s heart broke. She made this, the tears in her friend’s eyes were there by her fault. “I _trusted_ you but you, _you_! How long have you guys been planning this?! Waiting for Jughead and I to turn our backs and throw yourselves in each other’s arms?! Oh, speaking of Jughead, how is he doing Betty? How is he dealing with the fact that you _used_ him, that he was just some distraction and that you actually _never_ stopped wanting his best friend?!”

“No, that’s not-” she tried, her voice strangled, but Veronica cut her off by turning toward Archie, targeting him this time.

“I’ve asked you!” she exploded, pointing an accusing finger on his chest. “I’ve asked you if you felt anything when you kissed her. How long have been lying to my face?!” She seemed to have a breakdown as millions of thoughts rushed through her mind, her voice becoming more hysterical with each sentence. “You’ve told me I was for now and forever the only girl for you! What a foul I was to believe you! What kind of jerk are you Archie Andrews? _God_ that’s insane!” she yelled.

She seemed to be having trouble breathing. Betty wanted to fall to the ground and break into thousands of pieces. She tried to explain again, opening her mouth, but Veronica chose this exact moment to turn her face toward her. Somehow she managed to absorb all the emotions from it and it scared Betty in a way none of Veronica’s actions had ever before: like she could get through her and feel nothing.

“Don’t. _Never_ speak to me again, any of you” she added by throwing a death look to her former boyfriend. “I don’t want to see you ever again. If you try to speak to me at school, these slaps I gave you will seem nice compared to what I will do to you.” That’s only at this moment that Betty allowed herself to look at Archie for the first time since she came outside, and she saw the red marks on his cheeks. Veronica continued. “If you see me in the hallway, you change your path. If I only hear about you again, I swear that Riverdale can add a new murder to its already long list.”

She finally looked at them, taking a few steps back. “I can’t believe how much time I’ve wasted with you both” she said, disgust and poison in her words. She left and did not turn once, only taking her phone out of her pocket, surely so that someone could come and pick her up. Veronica Lodge wouldn’t return in a room full of people looking at her with pity for the nicer ones, or mockery for the crueler. She would spend the weekend trying to clear her emotions and come back to school on Monday with her best smile, pretending that Betty and Archie never existed. But Betty would know the truth, she would know that behind this mask, Veronica Lodge was broken because of _her_.

Betty and Archie tried to hold her, their voices stuck in their throats, but it was useless. The dark-haired girl was definitely gone, in every sense of the word.

Betty shed a long and pathetic sob as she folded in two, her fists clenched on her stomach. Her whole body was hurting her. Her heart was so tight that she felt like it was being ripped out of her chest. Her knees suffered from having to bear her weight, as if she were weighed down with guilt. Even breathing hurt her.

The sounds coming out of her mouth were sharp and muffled. She barely heard the steps coming closer and was surprised when she felt two arms holding her strongly from behind.

“Betty…,” the pain in his voice made her heart ache even more if it was possible. “I’m so, _so_ sorry. You don’t know how much I’m sorry” he whispered, his voice stuck in his throat. Betty hiccuped, her shoulders jumping every time. She seemed to have wasted all of her tears and the sensation of salt pulling on the skin of her cheeks was unpleasant. She came out of his embrace, pushing on his arms. He let her go. She couldn’t breathe anymore, realizing what had just happened. She needed air but it seemed to refuse to enter her lungs. She lifted her head to the sky where huge black clouds covered it and buried her hands in her hair, destroying her hairstyle but honestly, she couldn’t care less at the moment. She tried to steady her breath, without much success.

“What have we done Archie?” she finally managed to say, horrified. “What have I done? I’m a _monster_ , I-”

“No Betty you’re not, please don’t-”

“Have you seen the look on their faces? She cut him off, her voice broken. “We’ve hurt them so much. _Oh my God”_ she blurted out, her whole body shaking.

“Betty…” he reached for her but she stepped back, her eyes fixed on the ground at her feet. “Betty please I hate seeing you like this” he begged but she didn’t listen, instead repeating “ _Oh my God_ ” over and over again swinging back and forth as if she were in a trance. She walked back as if the movement could get her away from this whole situation, as if she wanted to hide in a place where none of this had happened. Archie looked at her, desperate, his eyes full of tears he couldn’t bring himself to shed.

“I have to go” she finally said, her eyes widening as the realization hit her to the core. She couldn’t stay here. She didn’t know why, or if it was right or wrong, but she couldn’t stay. “I have to go” she repeated. “I can’t stay here.”

“Betty _please_ …” the insistence and the despair in his last word and the way his hand caught hers, his grip so fragile and desperate at the same time, should have made her react but it didn’t. The world around her was spinning and she couldn’t think properly.

“Let me go” she implored him, detangling their hands and not looking him in the eyes. “Please let me go. I _ha_ _ve_ to go.”

He dropped her hand as she asked, letting her run away the second after, leaving him alone in the parking lot.

.

It started to rain very hard as Betty ran home. She didn’t even realize the irony of the weather. Her feet hurt in her high heels but she didn’t bother to take them off. She didn’t even think of it. Even when she twisted her ankle, she ignored the pain and kept running. Her hair and dress were stuck to her body and she was soaking wet when she reached her front door. She pushed her keys into the lock and rushed up the stairs, ignoring her mother’s calls asking her what she was doing there so early and why she had walked home in such weather. She locked herself in her room and took off her dress as best she could, struggling to peel off the wet fabric from her skin. She didn’t bother to wipe the excess water and put on her pajamas, passing only a cotton pad on her face to remove the makeup that had not already left with the tears and the rain. Then she threw herself onto her bed, burying her face in her pillow to stifle her tears.

She heard Alice knocking on the door, worried as she asked her what had happened and begging her to let her in but she didn’t answer. She didn’t deserve to be comforted, even though she didn’t want anything more than this right now. She deserved all this pain. And she deserved to endure it alone.

And yet, while her body trembled on the covers, she couldn’t help but hope that all of this didn’t happen, that she could get a new chance to explain, to make things even a little better.

That was her last thought before she collapsed from fatigue and drifted to sleep.

_If only she knew her wish would become more of a curse than a blessing._


	2. It's prom today... again!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty wakes up, positive that her world has collapsed. However, as this new day unfold it seems like it could have just been a really bad dream.  
> … But was it?
> 
> (Sorry, I suck at summaries!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaack! Remember me?  
> More seriously, sorry for keeping you waiting. I didn't expect this chapter to take so long before being published. Again, all I can say is I'm sorry and that I hope you'll enjoy this. Thank you for all the support. Your kudos and comments mean everything to me!

_Beeeeeeep…_

Betty was startled at the strident sound of her alarm, beating her eyelids as she stood up on her elbows. She wondered when she had set an alarm clock while trying to figure out where she was. In a fraction of a second the memories of yesterday’s evening returned to her mind and she felt the tears go up to her eyes at the same time that a lump formed in her throat. She felt so awful, the tears almost instantly flowed down her cheeks. How was she going to find the courage to stand up and face the reality that was hers now? A reality in which her former best friend hated her and probably preferred to choke on maple syrup rather than see her again, and it was even worse when it came to her ex-boyfriend. He might never set eyes on her ever again.

She let herself fall back on her mattress, suddenly having no desire to get up.

 _Jughead._ Her heart tightened a little more when she realized the situation. She was going to see him. Everyday. This morning. She was panicking, wondering how she was going to bear the burden of guilt every time she’ll meet him when her mother suddenly entered the room with a big smile on her face, startling her. _Didn’t she_ _l_ _ock the door_ _last night_ _?_

“Rise and shine Elizabeth, it’s prom today!” she said while going to open the curtains.

Betty wondered if her mother had forgotten everything about last night or if she was trying to make a joke of bad taste. Was it the same Alice who saw her coming home drenched and who had asked her to let her into her room? Had she forgotten? _How_ could she possibly have forgotten?!

“Leave me alone mom, I don’t wanna see anyone.” she begged, hiding her face in her pillow in an attempt to avoid letting her mother see her red and probably puffy eyes. Then she reminded herself the last part of her mother’s sentence and frowned. “Beside… what are you saying? Prom was yesterday, you know that” she said with a tight throat.

“What are _you_ saying?” Alice replied, looking confused. “Look at the date on your phone if you don’t believe me” she added in front of her daughter’s annoyed look. Her mother joke was definitely _not_ funny.

She obeyed, sighing, and reached out to grab her phone on the bedside table before turning on the screen.

_**9:04 a.m. - Saturday, June 6 th.** _

Betty’s eyes widened and she almost forgot how to breath as she read the words again and again in disbelief. Once she was sure she had seen well she tried to think calmly. It left her with two options. Option number one: her phone was dying. Option number two: she was going crazy. Or both. Yeah, it had to be this last one.

“What is it, honey?” Alice asked her when she came to sit next to her on the bed, looking worried.

Betty raised her head to look at her, still trying to process the information and what it meant as she asked her with a more trembling voice than she would have wanted: “Prom- prom wasn’t yesterday? It’s really June 6 th ?! You promise me?!”

“Yes. Yes! That’s what I was saying… are you okay?” her mother laid her hand on her forehead, checking for her temperature.

Betty opened her mouth wide at the realization while a weight seemed to fall from her shoulders. She jumped out of her bed to go check her face on her mirror. Her eyes were certainly asleep but they showed no sign of swelling. _Yet_ , there was no way that after all the tears she had shed last night she could look so rested. Then she quickly looked down at her feet only to see that her ankle hadn’t tripled in size as she would have thought. It hadn’t even hurt when she had ran ten seconds ago. Which could only mean that she didn’t sprain her ankle last night.

 _It wasn’t real!_ Nothing o f what she thought had happened had _actually_ happened! She must had dreamed of it. What else could explain _this_?

For the first time since she woke up (and perhaps for the first time in weeks), a genuine smile appeared on Betty’s lips and a nervous laugh escaped from her mouth. She probably looked totally crazy but she was so relieved that she couldn’t stop it. She interrupted her thoughts, however, when she heard her mother ask her if she was _really_ sure she was okay.

“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine mom. I just- I had… a weird dream, I guess.” Alice threw her daughter a suspicious look because, _why the hell do you start to laugh weirdly when you w_ _a_ _ke up and realize you’_ _ve_ _made a dream?_ , but Betty didn’t let her time to answer and quickly added: “You know what? I’m starving. I think I’m gonna eat something.”

“Uh, yeah, okay…” Alice started to respond, a little confused. “FP and Jughead are already down there having breakfast.”

Betty nodded, a smile still on her lips, and made her way to her room’s door, almost hopping. She froze however when arriving in the kitchen. Jughead was right there, tapping on his computer while eating a toast, his back facing her. The sudden enthusiasm she had felt when she had realized that she had had a nightmare almost made her forget that her reality wasn’t perfect either. Her dream was only worse. A wave of guilt invaded her and her smile fell as quickly as it had come. Her heart tightened and she looked at her feet as she passed by him. She couldn’t bring herself to kiss his cheek as she did every morning so she just greeted him and FP almost silently. Part of her was convinced that he was going to stand up and yell at her with this horrible look in his eyes, just like she remembered he had done when he had discovered her betrayal. _Except that he hadn’t,_ she told herself as she went mechanically to the breakfast cupboard to get the cereal, unable to stop her hands from shaking as she was looking for the box, _even if it seemed_ _real, it wasn’t, it was_ _just_ _a_ _really bad_ _dream._ It didn’t make her a better person though, but Jughead was fine. Veronica was fine. It was okay. Everything. Was. Okay.

She was absorbed in her thoughts when she suddenly startled at the sight of two slices of bread jumping in her face and hit her head against the shelf.

“Dammit!” she cursed before remembering that it had also happened in her dream. _Really_? Was she _that_ clumsy even in real life?

“Are you okay?” FP asked her while trying to hide his smile.

“Yeah, yeah FP I’m fine, thank you. Just… clumsy” she replied while massaging her skull before going back in search of her breakfast cornflakes. “Have you seen the cereal box?” she finally asked, starting to _seriously_ questioning her own ability to seek.

“I guess Jellybean finished it yesterday” Jughead responded vaguely.

“Oh” was all that Betty responded, not paying too much attention to what he had said as she looked at him, trying to hide the fact that she was trembling. It was dumb, she thought, so, _so_ dumb. She didn’t have to be afraid but these _stupid_ false memories didn’t seemed to want to leave her mind! However, he didn’t seem to pay much attention to her, he hadn’t even looked up as he answered, instead staring at his computer’s screen. He was acting normal and she was the one who was making a fool of herself. She gave herself a mental slap. What was going on her? She had been able to pretend that she was okay for more than two weeks, and now, because of some weird invention of her brain, she could no longer stand being in the same room as her _boyfriend_ without acting like she was facing the Gargoyle King?! She definitely had to snap herself out of it.

She cleared her throat, determined to act normal. “So… _Juggie,_ ” she started as she walked closer to him, trying to be natural but looking more like a drunk person trying to convince the cops that they were sober rather Betty Cooper, his girlfriend, _smoothly_ talking to him over breakfast – she was internally cringing –, “what are you doing?”.

Luckily, and _strangely_ _,_ he didn’t seem to notice his girlfriend’s odd behavior, or he just decided to ignore it, as he replied with his mouth full of yet another toast. “Studying Charles’ police report about the tapes. We agreed to meet at 9:30 to talk about it after I completed it.”

Betty lost herself in her thoughts once again as he mentioned the police report, having a strange feeling of déja vu before suddenly remembering why. It also happened in her dream. Just like hitting her head against the shelf.

Now that she thought about it, in her dream, it also was Jellybean who had finished _her_ cereals. Betty frowned for a moment, searching for a plausible and a _rational_ explanation to this. Because there ha d to be one. These repeating occurrences were just coincidences. Dreams were created from brain stimulations, emotions or memories and, above all, dreams came from the unconscious. So she could very well have heard Jughead talking about this report yesterday just as she had surely heard Jellybean say that she had finished the cereal box. H e r brain had recorded the information, even though she wasn’t aware of it, which explained why she didn’t remember any of it. It made sense. It had actually happened to her multiples times. It happened to everyone. It was just that it made her dream and reality appear a lot more similar than usual, b ut it was _logic_ _al_.

Jellybean liked cereals, so she finished them without bothering to ask for permission because, well, she was your typical teenage girl, and Jughead liked creepy mysteries so he was working on the police report of the brother they had in common at the early hours of the morning. Totally normal.

It seemed that she had been, _again_ , lost in her thoughts as Jughead waved a hand in front of her eyes, trying to get her attention.

“Uh?” she asked, confused, while quickly shaking her head, trying to come back down to reality.

“I asked you if you wanna come with me to work on the tapes.”

She tried to remember if she had something planed today and her eyes widened as the realization that she _actually had_ something planed hit her. With the whole “I’ve been dreaming” relief and her thinking about dreams she had completely forgotten Cheryl. Except that her cousin wasn’t exactly the kind of person you should forget about if you wanted to live to see the next day.

“I can’t. I have the whole Cheryl thing planned for today, remember?” He frowned, clearly not remembering and Betty explained. “Decorating committee. Prom. Me. Helping. Her. No?”

“Uuuuuh, right.” Jughead responded before focusing on his laptop once again. Then, FP intervened to inform Jughead that he was late and proposed to drop him at the office. In the mean time, Betty realized that she was also late and resisted the urge to to hit her head against the counter. Clearly, it seemed like she had no will to live.

.

She had totally forgotten to have breakfast in her hurry, racing to Riverdale High as fast as she could, and it was only now that she was folded in half, catching her breath, that her stomach decided to remind her how empty it was. She would kill for a hamburger.

She didn’t have time to salivate to the thought however since Cheryl came to stand before her with her arms crossed. “Well, well, if that’s not my dear cousin.” Betty raised her head at this, a sheepish look on her face as the redhead added: “I believe that I asked everyone to be here by 9:30, which is funny because I’m pretty sure that was like... _twenty._ _m_ _inutes. ago._ ”

Betty frowned as Cheryl’s sentence seemed familiar. Was she so predictable that she could anticipate her lines in her dreams? Her cousin interrupted her thought by throwing her with an accusatory tone: “Nothing? No bad excuses because ‘I’m sorry Cheryl, I volunteered to help but it seemed like I couldn’t make it in time?’.”

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry, I promise I made it as fast as I could but-”

“Stop!” the redhead interrupted her rambling by pointing her index to her. “I don’t care. You could have discovered yourself another sibling in common with your boyfriend that I wouldn’t care at all. So _now,_ move your barely existing ass and make yourself useful. Isn’t that why you’re here anyway?”

The blonde girl didn’t have time to reply that Cheryl had already left and was giving orders to the other members of the committee. She didn’t quite hear it though, too focused on her butt, wondering what could possibly be wrong with it. She wasn’t exactly the type to listen to Cheryl’s critics anymore but she must have had a problem with it because even her unconscious used her cousin to point out one of her flaws to her. However, she couldn’t focus on her morphology any longer since the redhead asked everyone to gather in the center of the room to explain the schedule of the day. Betty quickly joined the group and headed towards Kevin when she saw him. She gently greeted him while taking place at his side. The boy was a little surprised to meet his best friend here but couldn’t hide his smile at the thought of facing Cheryl’s prom’s preparation with an ally, especially since the redhead seemed to have the energy of a revolver bullet. He leaned towards Betty’s ear.

“She’s had way too much coffee this morning, don’t you think?”

Betty didn’t respond, instead just staring at him because even if it was a coincidence, even if _rationally_ she knew it was, she couldn’t shut the feeling that it was a little weird. She shook her head and nodded slightly. Kevin made a joke about Cheryl not helping and Betty chose to ignore the fact that she strangely already knew it, only forcing herself to laugh slightly so as not to offend her friend. It was the principle of coincidences, it seemed strange but it was only due to chance…

“Also, it wasn’t initially planned in the program but I discovered that the locker rooms and showers smelled atrociously bad. Whoever cleaned this up did their job poorly. Anyway, I can’t take the risk of having the so-called manly sweat smells of these gentlemen ruining the evening by breaking into the gym’s atmosphere.”

Almost immediately, everyone was looking at their feet, not knowing that Cheryl had already chosen her victim long ago.

“ _C_ _ousin_ _Betty,_ since you came in late, I’m putting you on this most important assignment.”

The girl looked up and meet the brown eyes before replying as if she were reciting a line.

“Of course, it will be my pleasure to keep your nostrils safe.”

“Perfect! Now everyone…”

Betty didn’t listen to the rest, just following everyone to the storage room and accepting the gloves and the bucket Cheryl gave her. She began her work with a single thought circling in her head.

 _This was_ definitely _weird._

.

By the time Cheryl called everyone for lunch break, Betty had convinced herself that it wasn’t weird at all and that her day was just so predictable that she’d made a dream out of it. That was normal. Of course Cheryl would made her remarks, she wouldn’t be Cheryl Blossom if she hadn’t. Of course the locker rooms would stink, it were locker rooms. Of course her cousin would ask _her_ and not someone else to clean it, _again_ she was her and Betty was Betty. When the blonde girl slipped on the wet tile and crashed against the lockers she didn’t dwell on the fact that it also happened in her dream. Instead she focused on something else, as she had done all morning.

She thought about the fact that she was starving, mostly. That wasn’t really hard, thought, since her stomach reminded her constantly. As she made her way to the gymnasium, Betty couldn’t hide her relief from the thought of eating. She had to wait for Cheryl to give a full summary of the morning and what remained to be done in the afternoon before the redhead said that she called some backup load to bring back food. Betty didn’t think much of the so-called ‘backup’ however – or of anything else for that matter –, her brain only remembering the word ‘food’ in Cheryl’s sentence. Her stomach was literally killing her and she felt like she could kiss anybody who would give her something – _anything_ – to eat.

So when the main door opened, she ran towards the team boys, not thinking even a second about the similarity with her dream, only attracted by the delicious hamburger smell that escaped from the bags. She probably looked like a slimy dog running after her bone but she didn’t care. She only stopped when she reached the boys and held a bag in her hands. It was the moment her stomach chose to gurgle in a loud way. Silence filled the room and while she should have died of shame, Betty only felt a huge panic. Because despite how hard she had tried to convince herself that she was being paranoid, she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that none of this was random. For a second, she felt paralyzed with fear. The fear of raising her head and finding two brown eyes far too familiar looking at her in an indescribable way. And, _perhaps_ , even if she would never admit it to herself, the fear that, in other circumstances, circumstances in which she would not be petrified at the idea of being strangely able to predict her day, she would look at him in the exact same way. But that couldn’t be real. She knew that was crazy. Whatever paranormal story she had invented for herself, it would only be chance if she ever found herself facing _him_ right now, facing…

“ _Archie?!_ ”

“Hi Betts.”

He smiled, shyly and fondly and in other circumstances Betty would certainly have melted but she was possibly going through the most horrible day of her life, that she had dreamed about last night and whose outcome was anything but cheerful so, truth be told, right now, she was scared to death. She gaped at him for long seconds, her eyes wide open, before she could finally talk again.

“Y- you’re here.”

She immediately wanted to hit her head against a wall because, _really, she couldn’t have found better than that?_ Archie laughed slightly and she felt her cheeks pounding.

“Hum, yeah, yeah I guess so” he replied with a grin, but Betty didn’t listen. Without realizing it, she began to mumble at full speed as the blood beat against her temples.

“You’re- you’re here. You’re here because Cheryl called you. You’re the backup, just like… just like…”

“Oh good, you’re here” Cheryl interrupted her cousin’s monologue by coming to welcome the guys. “Great job Andrews! Not that I expected nothing less from you. Gentlemen, please follow me. Everyone, lunch is served!”

The boys began to follow her except for Archie who had stopped smiling and was looking at his best friend with concern in his eyes.

“Betty, are you okay?”

But, again, she didn’t listen. The only thing she could hear were Cheryl’s words that seemed to echo on the walls of her skull. The _exact_ same words.

“I- I think I’m gonna throw up.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer and ran to the locker rooms. As soon as she passed the door, she leaned against a wall, trying to catch her breath and think calmly. She didn’t really have time for it, however, since a redheaded boy was already flying through the doors. She startled and smothered a scream before pressing her hand against her heart, which was beating furiously in her chest.

“ _God_ Archie, you scared the hell out of me!”

Seeing her against the wall, the boy’s expression seemed to soften, the anguish leaving his eyes, but soon the relief gave way to indignation.

“Wha- _I_ scared the hell out of you?! _You_ scared the hell out of me, you mean! First you starts mumbling like you’re in a trance and then you turn as pale as a ghost and you say that you’re about to vomit. I thought you were gonna faint!”

Betty widened her eyes, not knowing what to say, and watched her friend catching his breath as he passed a hand in his hair in an attempt to calm down. She was about to apologize when he suddenly moved towards her, looking determined, bringing his hand to her face. Her heart widened in her chest as a sign of anticipation and her body temperature seemed to increase by ten degrees in a second. What was he doing? She felt paralyzed as he moved closer, his hand only a few inches away. Was he going to…

Put his hand on her forehead. She tensed, stunned, before blushing violently as she realized how stupid she was. He was checking for her temperature. Nothing else. Which was totally cool, because she didn’t want him to do anything else. Of course not. She felt relieved actually. _Yeah_ , relieved was the word.

She tried to ignore his hand laying on her face as she looked up at him, her cheeks getting more red by the minute. It was really hot in here, or was it just her? And he was pretty close, wasn’t he? He finally met her gaze and even if she didn’t think it possible, her heart managed to squeeze a little more until it felt almost painful. She desperately looked for something to say but her mind went blank. Archie cleared his throat as he took a step away and Betty felt like she could breath again.

“You seem okay but you were really pale earlier, you’re sure everything’s fine?”

To be honest, she had totally forgotten about everything in the last few seconds and now the reality was hitting her once again. Her stomach contracted as she regained awareness of the situation. The dream. Her day. The similarities. The slide show. The rehearsal. The kiss. _Their_ kiss. Jughead. Veronica.

“Okay, and now you’re pale again. Betty, seriously what’s wrong?”

The thought of telling him everything crossed her mind for a second. _Let’s see, I think I might be living a day I’ve dreamed of. Only,_ _here’s the thing:_ _it ends with us two single and Jughead and Veronica_ _being_ _heartbroken. Oh, and did I mention that the entire school learn about our kiss?_ _A great day, right?_ While she was thinking, she realized once again how crazy it all seemed. She looked in his worried eyes and managed to regain her calm. It was all in her head. Archie deserved better than to worry about her and her disturbed brain. She quickly recomposed herself and straightened her shoulders.

“Nothing, it’s okay. I’m okay. _I promise_ ” she said in order to ease the suspicious look he gave her. “I’m just hungry, that’s all. My blood sugar level must be really low.”

“You’re starving you mean” he replied with a smile. “I heard the gurgling. Very classy, by the way” he added playfully.

“Oh, shut up!”

Even thought she did her best to hide it, she couldn’t contain the smile that formed on her face as she gave him a slight blow on the shoulder. A silly laugh escaped from his mouth and a warmth spread into Betty’s chest. Her smile dropped almost instantly as she realized it. She couldn’t feel this way. Not around him. She took a few steps aside to get away from the boy in front of her.

“But you’re right, I really am starving. I should go before I _actually_ faint, you know…” She tried to make it sound light but it seemed that all the joy and lightness of the moment had evaporated in an instant, leaving nothing but unspoken feelings and regrets floating between the two teenagers.

Betty tried not to see the pain in the redheaded boy’s eyes while her steps guided her back to the door. As soon as she passed through it, she turned to run towards the gymnasium, ignoring the pain that seemed to be pulsing throughout her body. In her race she did not turn to see Archie, left alone, feeling the same throbbing pain and murmuring in a broken voice:

“Yeah, I know…”

.

“Hum hello? Earth to Betty Cooper… do you hear me?”

Kevin waved a hand in front of his best friend’s glassy eyes in a vain attempt to get her attention.

“Do you believe in premonitory dreams?”

The question came out of the blue, causing Kevin to be a little taken aback. He looked at his best friend and, once assured that she was serious, took a few moments to reflect on the matter.

“I don’t really know. I mean, I’ve never really asked myself that kind of question before.”

Seeing the blonde girl nod with a distracted look and plunge back into her thoughts while biting into her hamburger with a morose air, Kevin sighed. There was something up with her, and he hated seeing his best friend like that.

“So _now,_ I’m going to be a good friend and ignore the fact that you were _obviously_ not listening to me and ask you: why that question?”

His sentence had the benefit of making her smile as she turned her head towards him.

“Sorry, I should have listened. It’s just…” she cut herself, hesitating. “I’ve made this really weird dream last night. It was prom day and… I know it makes no sense but… things were going the same way they are today” she finished, casting an uncertain look at her friend.

He stared at her, waiting for her to add something but Betty was only looking at him with wide eyes, curious to know what was his opinion about it.

“Huuuum okay” he finally replied. “Well, the rational part of me would say that it’s just a big coincidence Betty.” The girl sighed and he pursued quickly, looking sorry at his friend’s despair. “I mean, hear me out, our day was pretty predictable: we’re helping Cheryl Blossom organize our senior prom! I bet she didn’t go easy on the committee in your dream either.”

Betty frowned, not knowing what to respond. Kevin argued what she had been repeating to herself all morning and she knew the validity of these arguments. Yet, she couldn’t stop herself from finding all of it a little too odd. “Yeah but-”

“See! And this is not surprising! This is Cheryl we’re talking about.”

“Yes, I know that but Kevin you don’t understand. This morning I woke up and my mother greeted me the exact same way than she did in my dream!” Seeing the unconvinced look on her friend’s face, Betty realized that it certainly wasn’t the most persuasive evidence. She went on before he could dismantle her argument. “Okay, yeah…, maybe not _that_ strange, but there is more. I was also late because I forgot about the committee!” She looked at him as if it proved everything, her hands expectantly opened. In front of her, Kevin was looking at his best friend with a mixture of pity and doubt. She sighed. “Okay, do **not** give me this look Kevin Eugene Keller.” He took an offended look at Betty’s accusatory index, seemed to be saying "what look?" but she didn’t give him time to defend himself and added: “Come on, you know what I’m talking about. This ‘I-think-that-what-you-say-makes-no-sense-but-I-will-keep-on-listening-to-see-how-much-you-can-aggravate-your-case’ look!” He opened his mouth, ready to protest but, again, she was faster. “Never-mind, not the point. Okay, what about this: in my dream, Cheryl also asked me to clean the locker rooms. Ha!”

Kevin raised his eyebrows, looking a little more annoyed at each additional sentence, as if he were watching Betty dig her own grave. Betty, on the other hand, began to despair. The boy let out a disbelieved “So?” and it was more than she could take. She began to gesticulate, talking faster and louder.

“And when the boys arrived – did I mention that it was the _same_ boys – I run toward them. And when I raised my head, it was Archie. And then my belly also gurgled. And-”

“Betty…”

“And Cheryl also made a comment on my butt!!!”

She exclaimed, desperate to find anything that would convince her friend and momentarily forgot that they weren’t alone. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, wanting to punch herself in the face as silence filled the room for the second time this day, both because of her.

“Okay, I think that’s enough” Kevin finally said after a few awkward seconds. He gave the blonde girl the hamburger that she had abandoned during her fiery speech. “Now, calm down and eat.”

She bit into it furiously, now in a terrible mood, and Kevin instantly felt a rush of compassion for the hamburger. He made sure that everybody went back to their own business by glaring furiously at all the curious faces before speaking again.

“You know, before you started talking about your dream, I was about to ask that we join Archie for lunch but I think it’s better if we abstain for today.”

The boy only received a grumbling grunt in response and he sighed. She was _clearly_ upset.

“Okay, _fine_. Let’s say those events were not coincidences and were not so predictable so that the fact that you could dream about it is anything but surprising…” Betty’s eyes flashed at him and he hurried to finish his sentence before ending up struck down on the spot “can you tell me with a-hundred-percent certainty that nothing’s different from that supposed ‘previous’ day?”

The blonde girl began to think while mashing her food. If she recalled correctly, things weren’t _exactly_ the same as they were in her dream. The conversation she had with her mom and then with FP and Jughead were a little different. She had even talked to Archie today – which had not only _not_ happened during her dream but also hadn’t happened in _weeks_ – and the conversation she was having with Kevin right now was also completely new! …And this hamburger was really good, but that was beside the point.

“Well…” she started in front of her friend’s expecting look “I guess there are some differences…”

Kevin’s face softened and he gave her a knowing smile. Betty pushed her head onto her knees, wanting to avoid her friend’s amused look. She felt ashamed and stupid at the same time and mumbled against her skin: “So I made a complete fool of myself for the last five minutes for nothing, right?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say for _nothing._ That was quite entertaining…”

She let out a bitter laugh and finally lifted her head, her cheeks colored with the pink shade of shame. Kevin gently smiled at her and handed her a vanilla milkshake. “Come on, you need strength for what awaits us this afternoon.”

Betty nodded, pushing her absurd thoughts away and took a sip of her drink, decided to do her best to help this afternoon and enjoy her prom tonight.

.

And she did so… At least for the helping part.

Betty used all her energy to assist the other members of the committee _and_ to avoid Archie. Luckily, she had a lot of experience in one of those tasks and it was quite reassuring for her to return to her routine of the past few weeks: Help – Remind herself of why she deserved nothing and would be better off living as a hermit in a cold and distant cave – Help again (because it allowed her not to overthink – or at least not more than she already did –, and to relieve her guilt) – Avoid Archie (which turned out to be way more difficult when being forced to remain in the same room as that specific boy with an other redhead trying to put you on a mission together – which, of course, led to Betty struggling to find a terrible excuse not to) – and so on…

In a moment of doubt, she even managed to find the time to ask Cheryl if there was any slideshow planned for the night: this way, she could either finally put her concerns at bay or start banging her head against a wall in order to escape this – unfortunate? Crazy? Karmic? - time loop she seemed to be stuck in. In response, the redhead just stared at her with a look that could only be described as condescending before asking her ‘where the hell does this stupid idea came from’ (Betty had to restrain herself from responding that it must have been coming from her ‘cuckoo-banana brain, _obvi_ ’) and turning away.

As the committee tasks came to an end, Betty felt a wave of relief wash over her. Soon, she would be able to get away from here, from Archie, and from this horrible feeling in her chest. She quickly greeted everyone before heading out with a few members of the group. Kevin offered to wait for Archie so they could come back together and Betty did her best to ignore the memory of her nightmare and that same proposition as she politely declined, claiming that she was making a detour, and rushed out.

.

She had to admit that there was something painful in picturing her boyfriend being late for her prom night. Then again, she was forced to admit that it must be even more painful for someone to picture their girlfriend kissing their best friend. But what was even more painful than that was turning out to be right about that first thought and dreading the idea to eventually see the latter happen.

Betty shook her head at the thought and her heart tightened with guilt. Now wasn’t the time to think about it. It had all been a dream and today’s events were nothing but unfortunate coincidences. Mechanically, she looked at her phone’s screen as she already had done multiple times this evening. 7:20 p.m. And still no text from Jughead. She let out a heavy sigh and fell back on her bed. Almost instantly, she heard the characteristic tinkling of a text alert and rose in a leap, hope creeping into her heart. However, it quickly fade away when she reached her phone and saw that the message was from Veronica.

_**Veronica, 7:21 p.m. “Where are you? Archie and I are waiting for you and Jughead on his porch and Mary really wants to take pictures of the four of us.”** _

Her throat suddenly went dry as guilt invaded her one more time. What was she going to say? What excuse was she going to find this time to explain her odd behavior? She’d already been lying to everyone for _weeks_. When was it going to stop?

She put her hands at the sides of her head and let out long and shaking breathes in an attempt to calm herself down. Then, she reached for her phone and began to write an answer. As she did so, her steps leaded her towards her window and her gaze fell on the street. Down there, Veronica was holding Archie’s arm, smiling brightly and striking model-like poses in front of a very excited Mary Andrews. The woman was almost hopping on the spot, camera in hand. She radiated joy and pride and Betty’s fingers stopped over the keyboard. _This_ was something important to her. _This_ was her son’s senior prom. One of her child’s last high school events. She couldn’t take that away from her. She couldn’t take the joy of taking pictures of her son and his friends away from her. _These_ would make for lifetime memories. In a few months, when she would feel alone, her child hundreds of miles away from her, she would look at these pictures and remember her son’s smile on this night. And she would be fine.

Betty grabbed her purse and rushed downstairs.

.

She opened her front door hastily and ran towards the house next door, her mother a few steps behind her. When her daughter had said that she was going to take pictures across the street, Alice had jumped on her feet, claiming that she wanted pictures too!

“Elizabeth wait for me!” When her daughter didn’t respond she added: “And where is Jughead? Shouldn’t he be here by now? I already thought it was weird that he missed dinner but now it’s getting late, where is he? Elizabeth, do you hear me? You really shouldn’t run in heels, you’re gonna fall and ruin your dress and then how are you going to-”

The end of her sentence died on her lips as she reached the Andrew’s front porch. Betty was already heading up the steps where were standing Mary and the two other teenagers. When she saw her, Mary’s smile managed to grow wider and she beamed at her. She took the girl’s hands in hers and looked at her from head to toes.

“Oh Betty look at you! You look stunning!” Then she turned to her son. “Isn’t she beautiful Archie?”

The boy seemed to be caught off guard as his face turned red and he swallowed in a crooked way. When he had finished coughing, he raised his head slightly. His face was hidden behind his fist and his eyes were looking at everything but her when he finally replied.

“Yeah… Yeah she is.”

And then there was another tomato-like person on the porch.

Fortunately, Veronica diverted the general attention by suddenly questioning Betty.

“Speaking of, where is your boyfriend?”

“Yeah, good question, where is he Elizabeth?” insisted her mom.

“Uh…” she started, then realized that she didn’t know what to say. It’s not like he had gave her any answer and she had a feeling that he wasn’t going to show up anytime soon. Before she could stop them, the words were already leaving her mouth. “He’s joining us at the gym.”

“What?” Veronica exclaimed. “What does that mean? Is he _late_? To our senior _prom_?!” In her tone it almost amounted to a crime against humanity.

Everybody seemed positively shocked, especially Archie who tensed beside her. However, he remained quiet.

“ _No_ he’s not late, Betty replied.We agreed on it this morning and I just forgot to tell you about it but it was planned, I promise. Now can we- can we just take these pictures please?” She was almost impressed by the ease and rapidity with which the lies came out of her mouth.At the mention of the pictures, the moms completely forgot about everything else and asked their offspring to strike the pose. The three of them stood next to each other and faced the flashes of the cameras, wide smiles on their face. Betty didn’t even have to fake it. Seeing her mom and Mary so happy was enough to strength the corners of her lips.

After a while, Mary brought her camera down, smiling to the raven haired girl.

“Veronica honey, would you mind if we take some pictures of Archie and Betty alone?”

“Of course not Mrs Andrews, go ahead” she respond while coming to take place alongside the women, leaving an empty space between the two others teenagers. Neither of the two moved from their spot and Mary smiled.

“What are you doing? Come on, come closer. I can’t take your picture if you’re that far apart!”

With a nervous laugh, Betty and Archie both took a side step and found themselves side by side while making sure that no parts of their bodies touched.

“Okay and now you’re standing here like robots. Seriously what’s going on with you two? You’re the best of friends, don’t be shy!”

Without exchanging a look, the two teenagers got a little closer until there was no more space to fill and their hips touched. At the request of his mother, Archie passed an arm around Betty and his hand came to rest on her hip while she did the same for him. Her breath got caught in her throat at the contact and she felt her heart racing. She could feel the tension in every muscle of the boy who was standing next to her and she cursed him as he seemed to be unconscious of the circles his thumb was drawing on her dress and the chills it caused along her spine. She had trouble breathing properly and her grip on him unwittingly tightened. As a result he only tensed a little more and Betty felt like her stomach was exploding. There was something extremely uncomfortable and at the same time very pleasant with this feeling but Betty refused to identified it. Surely it was just guilt mixed with the joy of seeing their moms so happy. Nothing else.

It felt like they had been doing this for hours when the two older women finally stopped photographing them. In a second, Veronica was hanging on her boyfriend’s arm again, leading him to the car she rented for the evening and where the Lodges’ driver was waiting for them, leaving Betty with a burning sensation where Archie’s hand had held her a few seconds earlier.

.

The music was loud and covered the sound of conversations, forcing students to raise their voices to understand each other. Betty was chatting with Kevin and Toni when a new song started playing in the gym and almost startled the boy.

“Oh I love this one! Sorry girls but I have to find Fangs!”

Toni laughed as she and Betty saw the two boys jumping on the dance floor in spite of any good sense of rhythm.

“Well, I know one who enjoys his evening”.

“Yeah…” Betty replied, smiling slightly. She didn’t saw Toni looking at her though, wondering if she had imagined the sadness in the blonde girl’s voice.

“What about you then?”

Betty turned her head to meet Toni’s eyes. “What?”

The pink haired girl carried her cup to her lips and, in a shrug of shoulders, asked nonchalantly: “Are you enjoying your evening?”

Betty felt like she had been snapped. She wasn’t fooled, she knew that Toni was a perceptive person. She must have noticed something odd in her behavior. This did not, however, prevent her from trying to make a good face and pretend that she didn’t know what she was talking about. After all, she kind of always had been good at that.

“What? What do you mean?”

It quickly occurred to Betty that Toni wasn’t fooled either as the girl smirked and gave her a knowing look.

“Oh _p_ _lease_.” Facing Betty’s falsely confused gaze, her smile was tinged with a certain sadness. “Alright, whatever you want” she sighed. “I was about to ask you when Jughead was going to show his beanie-covered head but I guess I have my answer” she added, looking behind Betty’s shoulder. “I’m going to leave you, I have to find Cheryl anyway.” She began to move away before stopping after a few steps, turning to face her one last time. “But… Betty… just know that I’m here if you want to talk about whatever is up with you.”

The blonde girl saw her disappear into the crowd and tried to ignore the unpleasant sensation in her chest. A few seconds later an arm came to wrap around her waist and her boyfriend laid a kiss on her cheek. Betty smiled and pushed the feeling away.

.

“Ladies and gentleman, I have the pleasure to announce you that, for the first time ever, Riverdale High has two queens, misses Cheryl Blossom and Antoinette Topaz! Ladies, please come up here.”

She applauded as the two girls stepped onto the stage and then accepted the hand Jughead held out to her when the queens dance was announced.

It wasn’t like she was having the best night of her life but, when a teacher announced the release of a slide show, Betty suddenly felt like the rug had been pulled from under her feet. For a moment, she thought she was falling, like she had jumped from the top floor of a building and the ground kept moving away, prolonging the inevitable fall. She realized she’d stopped dancing when the muffled sound of Jughead’s voice reached her. She felt like she couldn’t think straight, her foggy brain only managing to record vague pictures of her boyfriend speaking to her but unable to register any of his words. She couldn’t even say what music was playing as she stood there in the middle of the gym and she didn’t notice everyone stopping moving as the dance ended. Seconds later, Jughead’s phone rang and he walked away to take the call after he said something to Betty that she didn’t understand. Probably telling her he had to answer but it was like everyone was speaking in an other language. She could hear bribes of conversations here and there but it was gibberish to her ears. Her head felt dizzy and she had trouble breathing. She tried to find Cheryl and her red dress in the crowd but her vision became more and more blurred by the minute. When she thought she had finally found a piece of scarlet cloth, Jughead came back and stopped in front of her, blocking her sight. He started speaking to her again but Betty only recorded a few words like “Charles” or “station”. She didn’t need to hear what he have to say to her, though. She already knew. The same way she knew what was going on. She nodded, her eyes trying to fix something. All she could see were stains of color. She vaguely felt him kissing her before leaving but it was as if her nerve endings no longer worked.

The blonde girl saw Veronica heading towards her and plunged instantly into the crowd, panicked. She could barely put one foot in front of the other and she was pushed from all sides but she tried to stay standing. She heard a constant hum in her ears that covered all the surrounding conversations and her head was starting to spin, but she had to find Kevin.

All of a sudden, she got hit from behind and fell on someone’s back, unable to stand on her flogging legs.

“Betty?”

She raised her head in relief as she heard the familiar voice. Kevin helped her to stand, holding her by the forearms, and his expression quickly went from surprise to worry.

“Betty are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“Kevin, I-… my dream-… it’s-” she said, but the words couldn’t get out of her mouth. Her head hurt _so_ bad. _Why did it hurt so bad?_

“What? Betty what’s happening to you? Are you okay?!”

She tried to answer him but only an incoherent sequence of sounds came out of her mouth, her tongue weighing a ton in her mouth as she felt heavier and heavier.

“Betty!! Betty are you with me?!” Kevin suddenly saw the redhead boy standing a few meters away and almost sighed with relief. “Archie! Come here, I need you!” In a matter of seconds, he was standing next to him, concern painted all over his face.

“Shit! What’s happening to her? Is she okay?!” he asked while placing her right arm around his neck, letting Kevin do the same on the other side.

“Clearly not. I don’t know though, she won’t tell me but I do know that we have to get her out of here.”

Betty felt barely conscious at this point but she tried to protest anyway. “No… I have to-… Veronica…”

At the same time, the sound of heels resonated near them. “Archie, where did you g-… Oh my god, Betty!” Veronica ran towards them when she saw the state her best friend was in. She followed the boys as they tried to leave the dance floor after they quickly explained to her what was happening. She suddenly stopped as she looked up at the slideshow.

“Guys, look: it’s Betty’s turn” she said, frozen.

Betty suddenly felt like her heart had stopped beating. She wanted to cry at her own helplessness.

“Not really the right time Ronnie” Archie replied without looking at her.

“No, I know but… her name’s with yours.”

Then, everything happened really fast, the events unfolding as in a Greek tragedy. Betty could barely see anything, her vision totally blurred and her eyes fixed to the ground, but, despite the hum in her ears, she managed to hear the sound of the video of Archie and her singing in his garage as she tried to hold back her tears and sobs, the world spinning around her. It was quickly followed by the exclamations of the entire senior class and, _finally_ , by the cold, distasteful voice of Veronica.

“What the hell?!!”

And then Betty felt her knees gave way under her weight and her vision became black as she passed out.

.

When she opened her eyes, Betty found herself laying on the back seat of her mom’s car. Alice had just parked the vehicle in front of her house and turned around in her seat when she realized Betty had woken up.

“Hey, honey… How are you feeling? I was so worried.” Her voice was soft and barely a whisper as she gently stroked her daughter’s head, putting a blonde strand of hair behind her ear.

Betty tried to get up only to fall back on the seat, still feeling very lightheaded. She groaned and put a hand on her face. “What happened?”

Alice offered her a soft smile. “Kevin called me fifteen minutes ago and told me you fainted so I jumped into my car and came to pick my baby girl up.”

“Kevin?” she asked, trying to remembering. The reality hit her like a truck. She got up for the second time, faster than the first, and immediately felt like she was about to throw up. “Oh no, oh no no no no…” Her voice broke and tears formed in her eyes as she buried her face in her hands.

Alice panicked, not prepared for this sudden wave of sadness from her daughter, and reached for her in an attempt to comfort her. “Oh honey, _no_ , what’s wrong? What happened?”

Betty didn’t respond, crying _hard,_ her sobs and cries filling the car.

Everything had happened again. _Everything_. For some weird reason, she had had a warning, she’d dreamed about it, she could have prevented these events from repeating themselves but _instead_ … instead everything had happened the _exact same way,_ _again_. Everyone was hurt because of her. She had ruined everything. She was a terrible person. Damn, she hated herself.

By the time she slightly calmed down, her mother had moved to the back of the car to hug her, rubbing her back and hair while rocking her softly. It was something Betty wasn’t used to, given the chaotic relationship she had had with her mother over the past few years, but strangely enough, being cuddled in her arms seemed very natural. Almost instinctive. As if, after all she had been through over the crazy past three years, she was allowed to be a normal teenager who needed to be comforted by her mom, even if it was just for this night.

“Shhh… I’m here, it’s okay, everything’s gonna be okay…”

Betty’s sniffs and Alice’s comforting words were the only sounds breaking the silence of the night. Normally, Betty wouldn’t have let herself be comforted, convinced that she didn’t deserve it but, on that moment, she did not find in her the strength to get away from her mother. She was tired. And a bad person. And she didn’t deserved it. But she wanted it, needed it.

When her tears finally stopped flowing, the blonde girl wiped her cheeks and nose and opened the car door to get out.

“Elizabeth,” her mother interrupted her “do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

Betty hesitated, before shaking her head. “Thanks mom but… not now, I- I have to call Kevin.” She could see that it was hard for her mom not seeking further but Alice nodded and Betty instantly felt a wave of gratitude for her mother.

“Whenever you want honey, I’m here.”

Betty gave her a little smile and headed toward her front door, letting her mom parked the car in the garage. She met FP and Jellybean in the living room, the two sitting on the couch and watching a movie, and the man asked her if she felt better. He didn’t mention Jughead and Betty concluded that he hadn’t come home. She swallowed her tears at the thought of her boyfriend and went up to her room, leaning against the door the second it was closed. She took off her heels and threw them in a corner before grabbing her phone and rolling up in a ball on her bed. Kevin picked up right away.

“Betty! How are you? I was so worried, I wanted to go with your mom but she wouldn’t let me-”

“I’m fine Kev, thank you. It was nothing, don’t worry” she cut him before he started rambling. “I- I wanted to ask, though…” she hesitated before sighing heavily. “Is Jughead still there?”

The was a beat on the other line before Kevin’s voice came back, full of sadness.

“Betty… Earlier, before you collapsed… there was-” he sighed. “Jughead saw-”

“It’s okay. I get it. Thanks Kev” she interrupted him again, unable to bear any longer the pain in her friend’s voice, knowing that it was here because Jughead had seen the same thing as the entire senior class.

“Betty I-”

“It’s okay but I gotta go. Night Kev” she quickly replied and hang up before he could say anything else, her throat getting tighter and tighter. Her eyes were fogged again and her body was shaking when she decided to look at the notifications on her phone. She had a text from Veronica but she couldn’t bring herself to look at it, too scared by the horrors it might say. Horrors she deserved.

She also had several texts from Archie but she didn’t read them either. And she had no idea what to do next.

How would she find the strength to get up tomorrow morning? And what was she going to do? And how would she-…

Her mind tortured by thousands of thoughts, Betty collapsed on her bed and fell into a deep sleep.

_It wasn’t until the third day that she **really** started to freak out..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you have enjoyed this. I felt it was important to put the whole day again in order to fully understand Betty's way of thinking and her persona. It serves more as a transition rather than a majorly important chapter.  
> As for future chapters, don't worry the pace of the story will change as they will summarize multiple days each.
> 
> See you soon (I hope!)

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, congratulations if you've made it to the end!  
> Feel free to give me any feedback, whether you've liked it or not.
> 
> I'll try to publish the next chapter as soon as I can.  
> Thanks again for reading this fic.  
> Bye :)


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